Almost
everyone hates it. But state legislatures are having a tough time
fighting it. "Is Anyone Up" may be gone, but there are plenty of other
revenge porn websites lingering in the dark recesses of the Internet.

Before it was shut down in 2012, the website Is Anyone Up was the leading publisher of revenge porn, defined as cell-phone nudes (or sexts) submitted by scorned exes, embittered friends, and/or malicious hackers posted next to the subject's name, location, and social media information.

The resulting outrage directed at the site and its founder, Hunter Moore (whom Rolling Stone called "The Most Hated Man on the Internet"), made it look like bans on revenge porn would be an easy sell to lawmakers.

So far, it hasn't turned out that way. Only New Jersey has a law on the books specifically targeting revenge porn.

In
2013, California is looking to punish anyone who posts nude or
partially nude images of subjects who had a "reasonable expectation of
privacy," including when the photographer originally had the subject's
consent. If the bill is passed (it was), it would make posting revenge
porn a misdemeanor punishable by up to a year in prison and a $2,000
fine.

Considering no legislator wants to be considered
"pro-revenge porn," it should sail through the legislature. However,
that is what lawmakers in Florida and Missouri thought before similar
legislation stalled last year.

So what's the problem?

The issue of who is responsible for the photos is a big stumbling block, writes Patt Morrison at the Los Angeles Times:

As with an actual paper-and-ink letter, does the recipient of the photo own the actual physical picture but not the content
and therefore the right to reproduce it anywhere? Is the owner of the
photo the person who took it or the person who appears in the photo?
What if it’s one and the same, a "selfie"?

Revenge
porn sites also have a lot of the protections enjoyed by sites like
Facebook and Flickr. Under Section 230 of the Communications Decency
Act, notes Somini Sengupta at The New York Times, third-party platforms are usually not liable for content generated by their users.

If prosecutors can't go after sites, they would have to go after users — who are often anonymous. If an image goes viral, that further complicates the issue of who is responsible for posting an illegal photo.

There
are also First Amendment concerns, which have been raised by the
American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and the Electronic Frontier
Foundation (EFF).

"Whenever you try and criminalize speech, you have to do so in the most narrowly tailored way possible," EFF
lawyer Nate Cardozo tells KABC Los Angeles. He worries that Caifornia's
bill "also criminalizes the victimless instances" — such as sites that
host legal, consensual pornography.

Regardless of the legal
complications, passing the bill sends a message to police and
prosecutors, argues Danielle Citron, a law professor at the University
of Maryland. "It signals taking the issue seriously, that harms are
serious enough to be criminalized," he tells the Times.Subscribe to the NetLingo Blog via Email or RSS here!
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